sluggish pools. Remembering Beulah Glore's 'poke salat,' Jack chewed a handful of greens pulled from the muck. They tasted rank and medicinal, and nearly made him sick. Again he thought longingly of Eggie's omelets, Mrs. Glore's brown-crusted pies, the warm fragrant tortillas and rich
Spitting out the shreds of grass, he rose, backside sore and chafed. Not too far down Turkey Creek, now, lay the junction of the Agua Fria, and the ranch. Straining his eyes into the distance, he saw dust devils whirling above the playa, tall spirals rising up and up, thousands of feet into the dry desert air. The wind was blowing hard. Looking at the towering columns, he saw something else, something that made him immediately apprehensive: blinks of light like small diamonds, sparks of brilliance punctuating the hazy distance. Watching, he saw one glimmer out. Almost immediately another flashed, as if in response, from the foothills of the Mazatzals. Were the Apaches out in force? Had other bands, encouraged by Agustin's rebellion, gone on the warpath against the white man? Perhaps the valley of the Agua Fria was already filled with them, looting, murdering. Perhaps Rancho Terco was finally overrun, perhaps even the Army was at last powerless to defend the valley. Climbing again onto the weary roan, he clapped his heels into the sweating ribs.
'Let's go, damn it! Hurry, Tom!'
When he splashed through the muddy pools of the Agua Fria just above the ranch the sun was low on the western horizon. Weary in the saddle, clothing worn and stained and face stubbled with beard, he hardly heard the challenge.
'Halt! Who goes there?'
Only half comprehending, he gazed slack-mouthed into the reeds while the horse stumbled on, splashing in the mud.
'Halt, I say!'
The roan ambled on; the cavalry picket fired. Jack Drumm's bowler hat flew from his head. Startled, now fully awake, he threw his hands in the air and yelled, 'God damn it, stop shooting!'
The reeds parted, a bearded face poked through.
'Advance and be recognized! That's what I'm supposed to say, mister!'
Wrathfully Jack slipped from the saddle to pick up the punctured hat. It had cost him four pounds sixpence at Mason's in the Strand. 'What in hell did you think I was? Did you ever see an Apache in a bowler hat?'
The picket stepped from the greenery, reloading his Springfield. 'I seen a Sioux, onct, wearing a plug hat and a long-tail coat. Shot the hell out of Corporal Voss.' He squinted. 'Who the hell are you, anyway?'
He herded Jack Drumm toward the cavalry headquarters, a tent pitched in the ruins of the despoiled Rancho Terco. Sadly Jack stared about. Ramadas had been burned, the painfully built adobe pulled down until only the walls, to a height of about a yard, remained. The corral had been destroyed, the watchtower set afire. Now it was only a blackened skeleton watching over a landscape of discarded clothing, broken pots, a few books. Everything smelled of fire, of rapine, of death. Something glittered in the ashes. Stooping to pick it up, he saw it was the Apache knife that had pinned Agustin's last warning to a post.
Someone spoke his name. It was Ben Sprankle, followed by a gaggle of his children. 'Mr. Drumm!'
'Hello, Ben.'
Sprankle's face was worn and sooty, a bloody bandage was tied around his arm. 'They come down on us at night,' he said in a dull voice. 'Guess we got a little careless. Anyway, they was on us in an instant, whooping and hollering. There must have been a hundred of 'em! They come over us like a wave, set fire to everything, run off our stock. It wasn't no good to stand and fight; they was everywhere! Sloat—' He broke off, eyes filling with tears, and bit at his lip.
Jack waited.
'Sloat—he told me to take the women and the kids and hide 'em in the reeds. The last I seen of him, he was in the middle of the fracas, swinging an empty gun. Then—'
Mrs. Sprankle put a comforting arm around her husband. 'There now, Ben!'
'Miss Larkin,' Jack said. 'Did she—did she—'
Sprankle took a deep shuddering breath. 'I guess they hit your diggings the same time they did our'n. They was all up and down the river. I heard screams from your place, but then it hushed up. Miss Phoebe ain't no place around. We searched both sides of the river but all we come up with was this.' Fumbling in his pocket, he brought out the tiny derringer and handed it to Jack. Both barrels had been fired.
'I wanted to go after her,' Sprankle said, 'but the cavalry said no, said they'd take care of everything.'
They stood silent together in a community of grief. Finally Sprankle said, 'I guess the only one that ain't suffered from this was old Uncle Roscoe. He left here early in the morning day before yesterday. Said he was going on a little practice run to get himself in shape for a spell of prospecting in the Mazatzals. Went up that way—' He gestured toward the snow-covered peaks. 'I hope them devils didn't run on him too. I dunno.'
With difficulty Jack cleared his throat. 'What about Charlie's family?'
Sprankle shrugged. 'They must have had some kind of a pree-monition. Skedaddled—at least I didn't see no sign of them during the fighting, and they ain't around now.'
'Maybe they were the wisest—to leave this place, I mean. Run away.'
'They can't drive
George Dunaway slouched from the tent, where a lantern burned in the dusk, and an officer with gold leaves pored over a map. 'It's you,' he said. 'Drumm.'
'That's right.'
'I thought you were on your way back to England—Hampshire, wasn't that it?'
'I got the word at Bear Spring,' Jack said. 'Corporal Bagley was kind enough to share a telegraph message about a raid along the Agua Fria. He said Phoebe was apparently kidnapped by Agustin.'
'Seems to be the case.' Dunaway pulled aside the tent flap and introduced Jack to Major Trimble. The major, a small trim man and obviously a West Pointer, shook hands.
'It must have been a raid in force,' Jack said. 'All the way down from Bear Spring I saw their mirrors, signaling.'
Dunaway grunted. 'Not their mirrors—ours.' He pulled a tripod-mounted instrument from the rear of the tent. 'New Army heliograph.'
Proudly Major Trimble showed Jack the polished mirror, the shutter that was depressed to send telegraph- code messages of dots and dashes of reflected sunlight. 'We've needed something like this for a long time!' he enthused. 'The red bastards always seem to know where our forces are, where we're headed for, when we arrive. They're smart, but now we've got a tool to outsmart them, beat them at their own game! Now we can communicate over a range of fifty miles on a clear sunny day, concentrate our forces in a few hours to wipe them out!' He smashed a fist on the desk. 'Obliterate them, destroy them!' His eyes shone.
'What are you going to do about Miss Larkin?' Jack asked.
'When they come down, as they eventually will have to do—'
'When they come down? Do you mean you're just going to wait for them?'
Major Trimble stiffened. George Dunaway cleared this throat, but the major silenced him with a curt wave of the hand.
'Mr. Drumm, we're doing all we can! We have an effective battle plan mapped out, and it does certainly not include sending U.S. troops helterskelter up into the Mazatzals. That is exactly what Agustin would like—a chance to cut us up piecemeal. No, sir, we are deployed along the Agua Fria in an extensive skirmish line and there is no way out for the rascals but to come down and try to fight their way through our lines. That is when we will break them for once and for all!'
'But how long will that be?'
Major Trimble smiled a small savage smile. 'When the snow up there starts getting deep, and the children are crying from cold and hunger. That is when they will come down, and we will be waiting for them with our new battery of Gatling guns.'
Hopelessly Jack Drumm looked at Dunaway. Dunaway looked back, discouragement in his eyes.
'I told the major,' Dunaway muttered, 'I was willing to take a dozen men—including Jim Bagley, if I could get him back here from Bear Spring—and go up after her!'
Major Trimble shook his head. 'I'm not going to have any dead heroes! We've already lost over a dozen men
